Why You Must First Love Yourself

Everyone has heard that you have to love yourself before someone else can love you. The reason for this is simple - our ideal partner is a reflection of us.

We attract people that are like us. Not just in terms of romantic, sexual/physical attraction. We attract them metaphysically - these people tend to turn up in our lives.

Each of us has a unique belief system, a way of seeing the world that is slightly different to everyone else's. It's almost like our ego has a fingerprint. What turns us on, what turns us off. What we feel is important.

Our political preferences, tastes in food and music, and so on, all arise out of this belief system. Our particular thoughts and feelings resonate with different aspects of the world around us. If your thoughts are dark, you like heavy metal. If your thoughts are happy, you like cheesey music. We like certain foods, like for example, coffee, because of the way they make us feel.

The types of people that come into our lives are affected by our beliefs. We meet people who have made the same sorts of choices we make. Where to live, which bar to go to, which supermarket to shop at. All these choices reflect our values and our way of being from day to day, minute to minute.

When you enter a seminar or lecture theatre, where do you sit? On the front row where you can ask questions or the back where you can fall asleep without being noticed? Our personality is reflected in the places we turn up... and so we end up being surrounded by people who are the same way.

Romantic compatibility has a lot to do with this. Why do we always ask our love interest what sort of music they like? We want to know they are on our wavelength. We want to know they are drawn to the same emotional experience, so we can trust that they will understand us.

Learning new skills keeps aging minds sharp

We are constantly reminded to "use it or lose it," and new research from the University of Texas at Dallas shows the same is true for keeping your brain up to speed.

No one likes the idea of slowing down as they age, but a new study suggests that challenging yourself to learn a new skill can bring noticeable benefits to an aging mind.

The Administration on Aging predicts that there will be 72.1 million Americans aged 65 and over by the year 2030 - 19% of the population. And the new research provides insight into how everyday activities contribute to cognitive vitality as we age.

Lead researcher, Denise Park, PhD, from the University's School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, says:

"We need, as a society, to learn how to maintain a healthy mind, just like we know how to maintain vascular health with diet and exercise."

12/03/2013

In this video we show you how a granite memorial is created from start to finish. Beginning with blasting at the granite quarry, to sizing and to design. This process is a craft that we take very seriously whether the end product is a headstone, grave marker or large monument. http://www.murphygranite.com/educationV3.html The skilled professional's that build our memorial's are passionate and creative individual's. The tombstone's that we create are as important to us as they are to the families we're serving.

It can often be hard to believe in yourself, especially if you feel like you have nothing to offer or are unworthy of things. But you are worthy and you are capable. If you're having trouble seeing all of the amazing things about you, then read the article below to start building you confidence in yourself and get ready to show the world how much butt you can kick!

Part 1 of 3: Nurturing Positive Views

1

Recognize your skills. Recognize the skills that you have and the good things about yourself. There are lots! You may not always recognize them but they are there. One way is to look for the things that you don't struggle with or to look for the things that people compliment you on (even if you aren't very good about accepting the compliment). When you look at the things you do well, you'll feel more comfortable doing other things too.

Change Your Words, Change Your Life: The Simplest Tool I Know for Immediately Transforming the Quality of Your Life

"Language shapes our behavior and each word we use is imbued with multitudes of personal meaning. The right words spoken in the right way can bring us love, money and respect, while the wrong words—or even the right words spoken in the wrong way—can lead to a country to war. We must carefully orchestrate our speech if we want to achieve our goals and bring our dreams to fruition."

—Dr. Andrew Newberg, Words Can Change Your Brain

Throughout human history, great leaders have used the power of words to transform our emotions, to enlist us in their causes, and to shape the course of destiny. From Winston Churchill’s focus on the “finest hour” to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s depiction of a “dream” we are well aware that beliefs are formed by words—and they can be changed by words. But what about the ability we each have within us to use words to ignite change, to move ourselves to action, and to improve the quality of our lives?

We all know words provide us with a vehicle for expressing and sharing our experience with others. But do you realize that the words you habitually choose also affects how you communicate with yourself and therefore what you experience?

For the past 35 years I’ve had the privilege of working with more than 50 million people and I’ve observed firsthand the power of changing just one key word in communicating with someone and noted how it instantly changes the way people feel—and how they behave. And I can tell you that simply by changing your habitual vocabulary—the words you consistently use to describe emotions—you can instantaneously change how you think, how you feel, and how you live. This is the power of what I call Transformational Vocabulary—consciously using your words to improve the quality of your life today and for the rest of your life.

According to Compton’s Encyclopedia, the English language contains some 500,000 words. Yet the average person’s working vocabulary consists of 2,000—0.5% of the entire language. And the number of words we use most frequently—the words that make up our habitual vocabulary? For most people, it averages 200-300 words. Isn’t that unbelievable? (By contrast, John Milton’s writings used about 17,000 words and William Shakespeare used 24,000 words, 5,000 of which he only used one time.) Of those 500,000 words total, as much as 3,000 are used to describe emotions—2/3 of which are used to describe negative emotions.

With such amazing resources with which to express our feelings and ideas, why should people accept such an impoverished vocabulary? Most people are not challenged by the size of the vocabulary they understand, but rather by the words they chose to use. Our brains are working at high speeds; they’re trying to help us to process what things mean and what we should do as fast as we can. As a result, we tend to use the same words over and over again. Many times we use short cuts, but these short cuts often shortchange us emotionally.

For more than two decades, I’ve been testing with live audiences all around the world, asking them to take on a very simple task: Make a list of the emotions you feel at least once a week. I have people take five to ten minutes, and write down not all the emotions they feel in a rare while (i.e. once a month or year), but simply the ones they consistently feel. Ironically, whether the audience is 2,000 people or 30,000 people, 90% of the people write down an average of a dozen words—and more than half of those represent negative feelings. That means literally, out of the 3,000 words we have for emotions, most people feel about five or six good feelings; and the bad feelings we find over and over again. We tend to get happy and excited, then angry, frustrated, sad, or even depressed, as an example. Have you ever taken the time to actually become aware of the habitual words you use to describe the emotions that you feel? Do you think it’s possible that when we feel negative sensations, that those sensations are transformed emotionally by the word labels we put upon them?

The problem is that most often we do not choose our words consciously to describe our emotions. Any emotions we experience that are distressing, we have habitual words that we unconsciously attach to them, and the challenge of course is the words we attach to our experience become our experience. Words have a biochemical effect on the body. The minute you use a word like “devastated” you’re going to produce a very different biochemical effect than if you say, “I’m a bit disappointed.”

It’s not hard to see the impact of this when other people speak to us. For example, if someone said to you, “I think you’re mistaken,” versus, “I think you’re wrong,” versus, “You’re lying,” would you have a different biochemical response to that simple word? The same exact process happens with the words that we use within ourselves, but unfortunately, we’re less conscious of its impact.

I first became consciously aware of the power of the words we use to label the experience of our emotions during an intense negotiation, more than a decade and a half ago. I shared information to the other side that I thought would help my two business partners and myself to cut through the positioning and show good faith. Unfortunately, rather than reciprocating with good faith, the other side ended up using that information to try to leverage us in an unjust way to close the deal that would not be to our advantage.

To say it was upsetting at the time would be an understatement. As I left the meeting to sit down with my two other partners, I couldn’t help but notice that the three of us labeled the experience radically different. I was frustrated and angry, but in the midst of my own emotion, I was literally jarred by the intensity of one of my partners. He was enraged and talked about how furious he was by their response; and how he felt that they were “putting a gun to our head.” His face was beet red and he was totally out of control. I was trying to calm him down—the intensity of his emotion struck me because it seemed over the top to my anger and frustration. By contrast, I couldn’t help but notice that my other partner seemed completely unmoved by the experience. When I asked him, “You don’t seem to be upset by this. Aren’t you angry?” He said, “Well, no, not really. I’m a little annoyed by this.” I was incredulous, “Annoyed?” I asked, “Don’t you realize what these people have done?” He said, “Of course I do. It certainly peeves me a bit.” “Peeved?” I echoed back the word. “What do you mean, peeved?” To which he responded, “Well, it’s really just not worth being upset over and that’s how I feel.”

I was struck by how each of us used words that had such radically different levels of intensity—enraged versus angry versus and annoyed/peeved—and also how the experience of the event was radically different. How could it be that I was “angry” and “upset,” one of my partners was “furious” and “enraged,” and my other partner was “annoyed” and “a little peeved?” The word “peeved” itself “annoyed” me. I thought, “What a ridiculous word to describe what these people had done to us.” It seemed stupid in my mind. I thought to myself, I would never use this word to describe how I was feeling…but then again, I had never been that calm in an unjust situation. I began to wonder, “If I did, how would I feel?” Just to use the word “peeved” would probably make me laugh. It seemed so ridiculous.

Is it possible that the words we attach to our experience, actually become our experience? Do words have a biochemical effect? Over the next few weeks, I began to notice the pattern of language that different people had and how their language patterns produced a magnification of their emotion or a softening of it.

So I decided to try a 10-day challenge with myself where I would first identify the emotions that I experienced most often that were most distressing, and find a new word—a word that would soften or actually seem ridiculous to break my own pattern of thought and feeling.

I got my first opportunity after a long series of connecting flights, all of which were late. I arrived at my hotel at two in the morning, knowing I had to be up to speak at 8 a.m. and waited at the front desk for 10 minutes while the clerk searched for my name in the computer at a pace that would make a snail impatient. I felt the frustration gathering inside me, it started to build into anger, and I finally turned to the man, as I felt my intensity grow, and said, “I know this isn’t your fault, but right now I’m exhausted and I really need to get any room you can find for me because I’m starting to feel myself getting “a little bit peeved.” Just saying the word “peeved” by itself changed the tone of my voice and made the whole situation seem silly. The clerk looked at me perplexedly and then broke into a smile. I smiled back; my pattern was broken. As ridiculous and overly simplistic as this sounds, the simple replacement of the word I used within my own vocabulary, broke my pattern. It was like the difference between saying you’re “mistaken” versus you’re “wrong.” The emotional volcano that had been building up inside of me instantly cooled.

Could it really be this easy? Just by changing the habitual words we use to describe the emotions within ourselves, could we change the pattern of how we felt and therefore the quality of our lives? Ten days turned into a month and I can tell you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it was a life-transforming experience. This is not to say there aren’t times when you want to feel angry or enraged, but wouldn’t it be nice to have that be a conscious choice versus just a habitual reaction?

Here’s what I found: If you want to change your life, if you want to shape your decisions and your actions, shifting your emotional patterns are the key. One fundamental tool that can change it faster than anything else is consciously selecting the words you’re going to use to describe how you feel. This is how you create a level of choice instead of a habitual reaction.

I call this Transformational Vocabulary because it gives you the power to change your experiences in life by taking the most negative feelings in your life and lowering their intensity to the point where they no longer control you. It also can be used to take positive experiences and increase them to even greater heights of pleasure.

Intellectually this sounds just like semantics, doesn’t it? What difference does it make to play with words? But if you test it in your own life experience, you’ll know it’s true. What would your life be like if you could take all your negative emotions and lower their intensity consistently? How much greater would the quality of your life be if you could intensify every positive experience you’ve ever had? In the next blog post, I’ll offer you some specific strategies on how to “Watch your TV” (Transformational Vocabulary) and develop a new habit in less than ten days. I look forward to seeing you then.

This article lists ten excellent reasons to challenge yourself and how they enhance our lives.

Challenging ourselves is one of the most important things we can do to increase our quality of life. By doing so, we not only improve as individuals but also enhance the lives of those around us and our communities, as well.

#1 Grow as an individual

It all starts with you. The below challenges will all help you grow as a person but there's even more than that. Engage in self-searching, learn who you are by writing, work on being more genuine, kind, honest, considerate, spontaneous, spiritual, etc. Much of growing as an individual will be related to the Behavior Needs categories.

#2 Attain awareness, knowledge and education

Not expanding your mind is a waste of life. A complacent, inactive mind is a sad thing. Make your mantra "I must seek awareness" and your universe will grow and grow. The more we know the more we realize how little we actually understand. It's inherently challenging and exciting! With the Internet, the all-time greatest library of knowledge is at your fingertips. Be curious and seek the truth about whatever interests you.

#3 Become healthier physically and mentally

Without health we have nothing. We can challenge ourselves to lose weight, eat better, exercise, get health care and educate ourselves on how to do so. A healthy body yields a healthy spirit.

#4 Build wealth

Money, money, money. We all want more but without challenging ourselves we are likely to not earn it. Money can't buy happiness but it can help us rest easier and enjoy life more! Set goals and challenge yourself to make more, save more and have more money, money, money.

#5 Become self sufficient

With the world economy struggling, more and more people depend on others to get by. Let's face it, it sucks to not be in control of your life. Challenge yourself to take the needed steps to put yourself in a position in which you can be the master of your own domain.

#6 Advance in your career

Are you satisfied with your career position? If you answered yes, then good for you! Unfortunately, most of us are not completely happy with our career and would like to make advancements within it. A conscious, well thought out set of goals can challenge us and help us improve our station in life.

#7 Become a better friend or partner

Conventional wisdom says friends, family and health are the most important things in life (I would add 'awareness'). Having good, real friends is mandatory for being happy, but are we being the best friend we can be? Do we listen enough? Do we reach out to our friends to show them we care? Being a good friend is real work and requires conscious, consistent effort. Challenging ourselves to become a better friend will unquestionably make your life (and your friends lives) more fulfilling.

#8 Seek inspiration and be more creative

All great artists eventually learn one golden rule: you must SEEK inspiration. If Vincent van Gogh waited around for inspiration to strike, we wouldn't have his incredible body of work to appreciate and he would have been even more unfulfilled. No matter what you do in life, you're in need of being creative and seeking inspiration is a never ending quest that requires real diligence. Challenging yourself to find ways to become inspired is a must.

#9 Gain new experiences and have more fun

The alarm clock goes off, we get up and go through our daily routines, then return home to finish off our day. Routines are effective but can bog us down into a mundane lifestyle. BORING! The truth is, it's easy to do the same old thing ~ it can even make us feel safe (a good thing). Why not challenge ourselves to try new things? By dong so we'll meet new people, learn new things, have more fun and grow as an individual. Heck, we may even be rewarded with new opportunities that may lead to a more fruitful career.

#10 Achieve happiness and peace

Happiness and peace are usually the end results of successful challenges, but they can be challenges all on their own. Why not challenge yourself to be more happy and find more peace? This will help you better understand exactly what it is you need to attain these two prized life goals.

10/30/2013

***DANCE WITH THE ELEPHANT DID NOT WRITE THE FOLLOWING BLOG - BUT THOUGHT THIS WAS A WONDERFUL STORY! FOR THE ORIGINAL SOURCE VISIT: http://thechairmansblog.gallup.com/2013/02/build-your-career-around-your-strengths.html****

The best advice I ever received came from my dad, Don Clifton. It was actually a piece of simple, yet profound wisdom that has shaped my life. “Your weaknesses will never develop,” he told me, “while your strengths will develop infinitely.”

If he hadn’t taught me this, my development and achievements would have stopped at a very early age -- in college, probably.

I couldn’t concentrate in college and flunked or barely passed a lot of easy courses. Later in life, I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, which made sense, particularly when thinking back to my college classes. Those classes were disorienting -- I just had no idea what the professor or the students were talking about.

Dad, who taught educational psychology at the University of Nebraska, figured out that my extreme weaknesses in classroom learning would never really develop, and that I would not follow in his footsteps as an educator. But he recognized that my strengths might allow me to succeed in sales, so he pointed me in that direction. Almost immediately, I succeeded at selling western record albums, history tapes of the old West, and advertising for farm and ranch directories.

Eventually, my best friend and I borrowed $5,000 and started a business selling market-research surveys. This was perfect, because the two things that inspired me most in a job were salesmanship and ideas. (I still love ideas, even bad ones.) Selling a wide variety of polls and surveys, mostly on the subject of customers, was a dream come true.

My work today has never really changed from that time -- it’s still predominantly about sales and ideas. I am forever indebted to Dad for the best advice I’ve ever received. So are millions of others.

Dr. Donald O. Clifton died a decade ago. He advised people all around the globe to build their work and lives around their strengths, rather than only trying to “fix” their weaknesses. His legacy is his late-life invention, the Clifton StrengthsFinder. This online assessment uncovers users’ top five strengths out of a total of 34 -- such as Achiever, Communication, Learner, Strategic, and others -- allowing users the potential to soar with their strengths.

It’s impossible to go anywhere in the world, from New York to Nairobi to New Delhi, without someone asking me about StrengthsFinder. Many of the world’s most influential leaders and organizations use it for their employees and students. If you haven’t already, I urge you to discover your own strengths and then build your whole personal development plan around them.

You’ll be in good company. Some of the most successful people I’ve ever known achieved what they did because they built their careers around their strengths, not their weaknesses.

As an example, our late founder, Dr. George Gallup, knew he’d never become a super-successful businessman. He once told me that he couldn’t even run a popcorn stand, and he was proud of this. But what Dr. Gallup could do was teach, and he focused all of his energies on that. He was so good at it, such a natural, that many leaders around the world who knew him have told me he was the greatest teacher of his time.

Dr. Gallup taught at the University of Iowa, Northwestern, and Columbia, and he never quit teaching even when he created the Gallup Poll. He taught presidents, world leaders, media elites, thought leaders, and students who would show up at the Gallup building in Princeton. He became one of the most famous people of the 20th century, and his polling changed the world.

Here’s another person who has soared with his strengths: Gen. Colin Powell. When he came to speak to Gallup employees once, he shared with us the observation that all he ever wanted to become was “the best soldier I could be.” He became a pretty good one, too -- not only a highly decorated four-star general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but also U.S. secretary of state and quite simply one of the most influential military people in history.

Colin Powell is a soldier. George Gallup was a teacher. I am a salesman. If Dr. Gallup had tried to be a soldier; Powell, a salesman; and I, a teacher, none of us would’ve succeeded, because we wouldn’t have been doing what we do best. As Dad said, if you want to soar limitlessly, you can’t do so by fixing your weaknesses, but rather by using your God-given strengths.

Another notion about leaders is that each one needs to know his or her strengths as a carpenter knows the tools in his box or as a physician knows the instruments she has available, and a carpenter does not hammer with a saw. So leaders have different tools (strengths) in their armamentarium, but the better she knows how to use them the more effective she is as a leader. It is not so much what strengths they possess as leaders -- it is knowing accurately what a person has as strengths. (A leader may also need to know her weaknesses, so she can manage them.) This means a leader needs to know what his tools are and exactly when to use each of them. This explains why nobody comes up with a list of characteristics that describe all leaders. One leader may lead because he has a strength in relating; another may lead because he has a signature strength in competing, or conceptualizing, or courage, or responsibility. What leaders have in common is that each really knows her strengths, has developed her strengths, and can call on the right strength at the right time.

Do you walk your talk? Say what you mean and mean what you say? Or does your language take you down roads you’re not willing to follow? Taking a closer look at how your words and deeds connect – or don’t – can help you see where you really stand.

How’s that New Years Resolution coming along? Were you able to stick to it? Are you still putting in the same kind of committed energy that you started with back in January? Or did you get off to a running start and then find yourself petering out six weeks later?

If you’re not where you wanted to be, you may be wondering why. There are lots of reasons why we run afoul of our intentions. Sometimes we make a too-ambitious plan we simply don’t have the skills or energy to execute. Sometimes we find ourselves facing emotional roadblocks that we don’t know how to get through, so we run out of steam. But often, the forward movement comes to a screeching halt because we simply don’t keep our word to ourselves. We make promises (“Tomorrow I’ll get up early and go to the gym”), and then break them (“Awww, it’s raining, I think I’ll stay in bed. I’ll go to the gym on my way home”) – often for reasons we don’t even understand. Which brings me to what might be an uncomfortable question: How good are you to your word?

Words are powerful forces of creation. They take our dreams and goals and put them out there for all the world to witness. Florence Scovel Shinn, a metaphysician of the 1920s, said, “There is always plenty on man’s pathway; but it can only be brought into manifestation through desire, faith or the spoken word.” Every time we speak, we create a road of some sort. The quality of that road, and how far it goes, will be directly related to the integrity of our word.

Speaking With Integrity

What exactly is integrity? According to the dictionary, integrity is “the quality of possessing and steadfastly adhering to high moral principles or professional standards, and the state of being complete, undivided, sound or undamaged.” Integrity, then, is having high principles and keeping those standards consistent throughout all the different parts of the self.

One of the first places integrity issues show up is in our language patterns. When we are “in integrity,” we speak from a place of wholeness. Our words match our actions. As Dr. Seuss put it, “We say what we mean and we mean what we say.” When we break from this pattern and say things we don’t really mean, we move “out of integrity.”

Can you identify someone in your life who uses language carelessly, who agrees to things readily but then never seems to be able to show up for his or her agreements? Do you know individuals who spend a lot of their time speaking about things they have no experience with – who have plenty of opinions but little real, applicable knowledge to back it up? Do you have friends who frequently gossip or who say disempowering things about themselves? These are some of the common ways that people deprive themselves of the potential power of speech.

Language is meant to power our dreams into physical reality. When we “spend” our language on half-baked ideas, or passionate views we may have heard about but have no direct experience with, when we use language destructively or we say things we don’t really mean, we lose personal power. Personal power comes from being in integrity and diminishes whenever our integrity is undermined. Unfortunately, very few of us are taught the skills of using language as an integrity-building force.

10/16/2013

***THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE COMES FROM http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-28248286/where-does-innovation-come-from/ AND WAS NOT ORIGINALLY WRITTEN BY THE DANCE WITH THE ELEPHANT TEAM - WE JUST WANTED TO SHARE IT WITH YOU!***

Where Does Innovation Come From?

By

STEVE TOBAK /

MONEYWATCH/ August 29, 2011, 9:00 AM

Innovation is definitely a hot topic these days, but the one thing that's fuzzy for most people is where does it actually come from?

I mean, what makes one guy innovative and another, well, just a regular guy? Before we get into that, let me explain a few things about innovation.

For one thing, it's not the same as invention, although folks often confuse the two. Invention is a unique discovery or finding; innovation is introducing something new.

That may sound like semantics, and maybe it is, but at least in my mind, there's one big difference: innovation can be an application of someone else's invention in a new and practical way.

Indeed, innovation isn't a supernatural event, a preordained occurrence that only happens to certain people. And great innovators don't go from zero-to-great in a heartbeat. More often than not, they stand on the shoulders of giants, see things a little bit differently, or benefit from timing, opportunity, or luck.

For example:

Steve Jobs didn't invent the GUI or the computer mouse, but when he saw them demonstrated, his mind was probably racing with practical applications.

Howard Schultz didn't invent coffee, espresso, or cappuccino, but he has certainly been an innovator in bringing all that to the masses through Starbucks.

McDonald's was the fast-food innovator, but I seriously doubt there are any real inventions under the golden arches.

Bill Gates didn't invent the PC operating system and he certainly didn't come up with the idea of licensing technology, but his business model - combining the two - made Microsoft one of the most valuable and powerful companies in the world.

Having spent my entire career working with entrepreneurs and innovators in the high-tech industry, these are the 10 characteristics and methodologies that I think define innovative people:

Where Does Innovation Come From?

Standing on the shoulders of giants. Contrary to popular belief, innovation is often far more evolutionary than revolution, more practical and crafty than breakthrough invention. Most of the time you're repurposing somebody else's idea.

Left brain - right brain balance. The whole left brain - right brain thing is a myth, but metaphorically speaking, I think innovation often springs from a combination of inspirational thought (right brain) and practical need (left brain). They say necessity is the mother of invention; it's probably more true of innovation.

Belief that you're special. Many, if not most, innovative people have this sort of childish belief that they're special, destined for great things. The thought of doing something new and different - changing the world, as it were - can be daunting. Unless you truly believe it's your destiny, you'll probably be too scared to even try.

Questioning conventional wisdom, the status quo. If you even mention how things are doneor should be done to a true-blue entrepreneur or innovator, it's like nails screeching on a chalkboard.

Vision. Oftentimes, people just have a vision of how they think something should be. It's really that simple. But they're also driven to see it through, as in the next bullet ...

Driven by the need to prove something. Innovative people are definitely on a mission to prove something to somebody and half the time I don't even think they know who.

Problem solving. If you're not a problem solver, you're probably not going to come up with anything that anybody will find useful. Control freaks are natural problem solvers - they can barely walk down the street without seeing all sorts of things that can be done better.

Passion. Without passion and genuinely loving and caring about what you do, you simply won't have the resilience and stickwithitness to see innovation of any magnitude through. It's never just an idea - you have to actually do stuff with it.

Focused brainpower. Athletes will tell you success is all about focus: you can't hit a 100 mph fastball or catch a 30 yard pass with defenders all up in your face without it. It's the same with innovation. Ironically, people who appear to be all over the map with ADD-like symptoms can have rare moments of clarity when it all comes together.

Work stamina. There's loads of talk these days about working smarter, not harder, taking more breaks, etc. While I'm a big believer in not killing yourself with work, if you don't enjoy working and work stamina isn't in your blood, you're not likely to innovate a thing.